Front-End Developer Review

I very much enjoyed my time at Cognito

I felt like I was given a lot of trust by my colleague during sprints to complete tasks, even if they were time-sensitive or potentially difficult; this made me feel very valued during my time at Cognito, most of the time I forgot I was even on a placement.

If I ever had an issue with my work, or just a general question, everyone in my team was always very happy to help and give me advice. I was never confused or struggling for long as I would always get help with whatever my issues were.

I was never less or more busy than the rest of my team, and like any software job there were times were work would be a bit sparse (coming towards end of sprints, etc) but in these times I also had personal projects to work on which were given to me by my manager, so I was never stuck for something to do.

I didn't feel as if I was given less responsibility than any of my peers, which helped me feel very valued. Along with my primary job, I also was helping with live, customer-facing issues as they came along, as well as working on multiple large projects which affected my team and others.

I, without a doubt, learnt more in my year at Cognito than I have in my 2 years at university. The skills were also more varied, as although I was recruited to a Java-focused team I also learnt skills in other languages such as Python, Ruby and JS as well as Test Frameworks (cucumber etc) and server management/set up. All of these skills I felt were extremely relevant to me and will help me with my degree and career.

The atmosphere in the office was always chatty and enjoyable. I regularly had chats with my team and we were often joking and talking for long periods of the day while working. I very rarely felt bored in the office.

After the first couple weeks of learning Code bases and setting up your workstation you simply slot into the team and begin working on issues. I was also given a small project to start my off with my placement which helped me learn the code base a lot faster, and get used to the development process.

I wasn't given any particular training during my placement, but I felt the amount I learnt just by doing my job far surpassed anything I could have learnt with extra training or development. I was often given tasks to solve which were new to me and this pushed me to learn new skills and programming languages by myself without a formal learning environment.

Very appealing, I would love to work at Cognito when I finish university if I get the chance.

Although I joined with 4 other students, you are all put in separate teams which can reduce the amount of time you spent with each other. Also, I lived with only one of the other students so we didn't see the others as much.

Newbury isn't the most expensive area, but it isn't student prices (especially as its quite close to london)

There were a lot of pubs which I regularly visited with the team, and there is a nightclub in Newbury which is pretty good but I very rarely went. You'll be looking more to Reading for nights out, but the travel there and back can be expensive.

While there weren't many company-wide opportunities, within the team I went to Climbing, Go-Karting and to plenty of curry's (which was often followed by a late night in the pub)